Monday, August 11, 2014

Sporting and Joseph Mutually Agree to End His Contract

In a move that's been anticipated for a while now, Sporting KC and midfielder, Peterson Joseph parted ways today as the club and player mutually agreed to terminate his contract with the club. Joseph had not appeared or practiced with the club since he collapsed during practice during the playoffs last year. Since then he'd had a number of tests done all over the country to try and figure out exactly what had caused him to collapse.

Joseph, the Haitian Xavi had joined the club in September of 2011. For KC he played in 34 league games, two playoff games, three CONCACAF Champions League games, and three US Open Cup games in his short career. There were plenty of flashes of the type of player he could be for KC, his assist with the outside of the foot to set up a goal by Jacob Peterson against Columbus was one of my favorite plays of the 2012 season. Then there's the 2012 playoff win over Houston at home where Joseph and Oriol Rosell dominated the center of midfield and it looked like the midfield pairing of the future for the club had arrived. Unfortunately, both are now gone from the club.

My initial reaction to this is that this is a good move for both parties. KC gets an international slot opened up, and I assumed Joseph would move on with his life. I thought he'd just go ahead and retire because of whatever the condition was that is keeping him from playing for KC. That doesn't look to be the case though. It would appear that Joseph has made his way to Africa where he is training and has played a training game with Azam FC in Tanzania. Maybe his condition isn't as bad as it seemed, or maybe he's not ready to give up playing and he's going to try to make it in a place that may not take as much of a precaution with his condition.